by Dianne Drake
“Then you’d be good at stitches because kids always need them.” Assumption made. It wasn’t a question.
“I’ve done my fair share.”
“OK, I’ll let you do the honors. In the meantime, freshen up the water in the basin.”
The water was nearly black with dirt, which made her cringe because all that dirt had come from Tyjon’s foot.
“Please,” Adam added.
“What?”
“Please. You were standing there, staring at the basin, so I figure you were waiting for me to say please. So … please.”
She hadn’t been waiting for politeness. From Adam Coulson, whom she’d known for only an hour, she expected none. But her hesitance was … well, she couldn’t explain it. What she was seeing here wasn’t exactly a shock, because there were areas all over the world where the medical standard was different from her medical standard. What she didn’t understand was the doctor—his casual attitude, his lack of basic medical supplies. “Are you really a doctor?” she asked. “Educated in a regular medical school, licensed to practice?” The question just popped out of her.
He paused in his bathing of Tyjon’s foot, looked up at her, frowned for a moment, then broke into a broad smile. “A little while ago, Davion had almost convinced me to feel guilty about refusing to hand over the deed to my land. Honestly, I was feeling a little bad about the way I was treating you, and fully prepared to apologize for it. Like I said, that was a little while ago. But not any more. Now, the water, please.”
So, maybe she deserved that. She wasn’t about to apologize for asking, but she wasn’t going to take too much offense to his reaction either, because she shouldn’t have challenged him that way, especially not in front of Tyjon. So, before she said something else she’d regret, Erin picked up the basin, returned to the kitchen, and dumped out the old water. As she gave the basin a quick wash with dish soap and water, she thought about why she was here, and it was too important to let these skirmishes with Adam Coulson get in her way. Make no mistake, they could get in the way if she wasn’t careful. He was, after all, the local doctor. While she had all her permissions in place for the hospital, and all the legalities out of the way, having the doctor with her, rather than against her, was smart. So for now, she’d have to curb her temper. “For you, Dad,” she whispered, fighting the tears welling up in her eyes when she thought about the graceful way her father was accepting his fate. She didn’t have that same gracefulness about her in any sense, no matter how hard she’d tried to find it within herself. She was reactionary, quick to fight. On the verge of dumping the water on Adam Coulson, although there was no grace in that. However, the thought of it did come with some surprising satisfaction. This wasn’t about her, though. When she remembered that, everything else faded away.
“You crying?” Adam asked from the doorway.
“No!” she snapped, blinking hard then brushing the back of her forearm across her eyes. “I splashed soap in my eyes.”
“'If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out.'”
“What?” she sputtered, spinning to face him.
“That’s the kind of thing you’d expect me to say, isn’t it? I don’t have antibiotic cream, I still use penicillin, I make do with what I can find.”
“And the rubber earpieces for your stethoscope are wearing through.”
“You’ve judged me on several criteria that have nothing to do with my abilities as a doctor, so I thought telling you what to do with the soap in your eyes is what you’d expect from me. Especially since you haven’t seen my diploma from Harvard so you don’t know if I’m a real medical doctor.”
“Harvard?”
He chuckled. “Preconceptions are dangerous, Dr Glover. They can get you into all kinds of trouble. So much so that you’ll end up without antibiotic cream, decent rubber earpieces and a whole lot more trouble than you’d ever bargained for. Oh, and for your information, even though it’s none of your business, I’d use penicillin even if something out there was cheaper, because I like penicillin. Now, my water?”
The strains of the music wafted over to Trinique’s home, and Erin was finding herself strangely addicted to it already. It was calming. And happy. It transported her to the Jamaica her father had always told her of, the one she believed, with all her heart, was still there. Untouched.
“I wish you’d come with me,” she said over the phone. “Regina is a beautiful village. The cottages … they’re painted with all different colors. Reds, blues, pastels like pink and yellow. Every one a different combination. And they’ve all got so many types of tropical flowers in the yards … It’s like an artist’s pallet. Then, the people … they’re so nice. They just take you in and treat you like you belong, like you’re part of their family. Well, all but one, and he doesn’t count since he’s not Jamaican.” She wasn’t about to tell her father of the trouble brewing with the land purchase. As far as he knew, she had the deed by now and everything was moving forward. Oh, she was pretty sure Coulson would turn it over, but it was going to be in his own good time. Which wasn’t her time, as she had her dad fully involved now in the business plans for the new hospital, and the sooner those were finalized, the sooner he’d come to Jamaica … she hoped. It was her intention to put him in charge of the hospital, blind or not. Algernon Glover, Chief of Staff at the Algernon Glover Hospital. Maybe it would give him back some of his life. Maybe it would entice him to come out of his dark study, where he kept the shades drawn and the door closed. That’s the way he lived these days and it scared her. But soon, very soon, that would be over with. She hoped. “So, why don’t you come down? You can do everything you need to from here.”
“I’m fine where I am, and I have more than enough to keep me busy here.”
It was clear he didn’t like getting too far away from his comfort zone. That, more than anything else, was what made her feel sad. She and her dad had traveled to so many places together over the years, and done so many things. “But you could use a nice holiday, and the beach here is beautiful. Nicer than anything else I’ve seen in Jamaica. So pristine. No tourists.”
“There’ll be time enough for that in a while. Right how, I still have work to do right where I am. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find some time for a short holiday yourself. You wouldn’t want your father on your arm for that, would you? Especially if you meet a nice young man who’s in the mood for a little holiday, too?”
He lived in perpetual hope of that. Wanted grandchildren. But she’d … she’d never been that interested. It had been more than fifteen years since her last recurrence of leukemia, and the doctors had long since declared her recovered. Years and years of fighting the disease and all its nasty comebacks had taught her to be cautious. It had also taught her to stay focused on her goal … get through college, get through medical school, now this. Her life hadn’t afforded her the luxury of having more than one goal at a time because there had been so many times when even a single goal had been a struggle. So now she had a single goal to achieve, the most important one of her life, and she wouldn’t allow herself to think in terms of anything more.
“Dad, you know I’m not looking right now,” she told him.
“One of my big regrets, Erin, is that I have raised such a serious daughter. You were brought up in an old man’s world, I’m afraid, and you don’t know how to have fun.”
Her father was older, yes. But fun … her life had been filled with fun, filled with so many wonderful things. And this was her father’s standard argument, the one he used to make her feel guilty. “It’s not going to work,” she teased.
“What’s not going to work?” he asked, laughter just on the edge of his voice.
“You know what I’m talking about. And there’ll be plenty of time for grandchildren, if I ever do find the right man.”
“If you ever start looking.”
Oh, she’d looked. Come close to finding, actually. Then been jilted because a slight illness had brought up a cancer scare, which had scared a man she might
have been serious about right out the door. And he had run so hard and fast he hadn’t even made the promise that he’d call, or see her again, or they’d work it out. He’d told her he loved her one week, then bolted the next. Like her high school sweetheart had when the cancer actually had returned. Or her childhood best friend had when the chemotherapy had claimed her hair. Oh, gross, Erin. You’re, like, going bald. That’s so disgusting. So, no more looking, no more expectations. Emotionally, it was easier that way. “On that note, I’m going to say goodnight. Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, Erin. Even if you are stubborn and too serious for your own good.”
He clicked off before she could get to her next comeback. And for a while after the phone call she sat with her feet propped up on the porch rail, enjoying the gentle, hot breeze, still listening to the strains of happy music wafting in. Thinking of Adam Coulson, not of her dad. Harvard education and without a decent stethoscope. On impulse, she dialed her dad back. “One more thing,” she said. “Could you send me a stethoscope?”
It was a small gesture, and she kept telling herself that it was for Tyjon, and anybody else needing treatment here. Not for Coulson.
“So, let’s just get this over with.” A voice came at her from out of the dark a while later.
Startled by Coulson’s intrusion into her pleasant solitude, Erin jumped. “Do you always sneak up on people that way?”
“I wasn’t sneaking.”
“And you didn’t exactly announce yourself either, did you?”
“Actually, I did. I said, ‘Let’s just get this over with.'”
Straightening in the chair and pulling her feet off the porch rail, she was a little sad to have her evening ended so abruptly. It was nice to relax for a while. The ambiance suited her, made her feel mellow. Lately, she hadn’t had time to relax, and who knew how long it had been since she’d felt mellow. “I agree,” she said, standing. “Let’s get this over with. Do you have my deed?”
He handed it over, without saying a word.
She didn’t look at it, though. He wouldn’t cheat her on this, and to look would be to insult him. No need to do that. No need to rub salt in what was obviously a very open, very raw wound. “Thank you,” she said, tucking the paper into her pocket.
“Just like that,” he said, almost under his breath.
“Like what?”
“Like in a split second, it’s gone.” He shrugged. “So that makes us neighbors now, doesn’t it?”
“In proximity, yes, I suppose it does. But we don’t have to be neighborly. I know you didn’t want to sell your land, and I know you resent me for buying it. So it’s OK with me if we’re not friends, not even neighbors who wave.”
“And you think that makes it better for me?”
“I don’t know what makes it better for you, Coulson. I’m just making an offer. I’ll stay away from you, leave you alone, won’t even come to Trinique’s, if it’s better for you that way.” It wasn’t much of a gesture, considering the circumstances. But it was the best she could do.
“What’s better for me is getting my property back, but that’s not going to happen. You need it for whatever reason you may have, and I wanted it for whatever reason I had.
But in the end, my reason wasn’t going to happen. Don’t know if yours will or not.”
“What was your reason?” she asked him.
“To use it as it was intended … as a hospital. But as you can see, I barely manage a clinic, so the hospital was a …”
“A dream?”
“A long way off. Money talks. You had it, I need it, and now one of us is happy while the other is better off. Fair trade, although I hate it to hell.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m going to open a children’s hospital.”
“Now, there’s an impractical idea if ever I’ve heard one.”
“You think a children’s hospital is impractical?” she practically growled, she was so angry.
“Not in the right setting. Which is someplace accessible, a place people can get to easily, where they’ll want to take their children. We’re not accessible here. You already know that. And nobody in their right mind will bring their children to a place where the only way in or out is on a rutted road. Put the hospital someplace where people can use it. Not here!”
“But here is perfect.” And her hospital wasn’t going to be just any ordinary hospital. It was going to be everything she hadn’t had when she’d spent so much time in various hospitals. It was going to be a place where being sick wasn’t the focus, but being normal was.
“Shows what you know about setting up a hospital. At least, when I wanted to start a hospital here, I had enough sense to know that the area would support a very small general hospital. General hospital, not a specialty facility.”
She tamped back her anger to face his challenge. With Adam Coulson, she had an idea that anger could turn into a steady diet, and she simply didn’t want to bristle then strike every time they met. So now was as good a time as any to start reining herself in. Because she wasn’t going anywhere. This was home. He was her shouting-distance neighbor. She didn’t want the strife on a lingering basis. Gritting her teeth, she smiled up at him. “Then I guess it’s up to me to prove you wrong, isn’t it?”
“Or the other way around.”
“Not going to happen, Coulson. I know what I’m doing.”
“The thing is, so do I, and I also know it’s a bad idea.”
“You’ll change your mind.” She hoped.
“You’ll change your plans.”
“I don’t think so.” Standing her ground with him was … stimulating. It made her tingle. So much so, she took a step back from him. “Look, there’s no point in arguing about it. I’m going forward with my plans, whether or not you like it, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“Actually, I can stand back and watch you fail, then buy back my property for a fraction of what you paid me for it.”
He said it with a grin on his face, but she knew he was serious. The truth of the matter was, she didn’t blame him. Were she in his position, she’d probably be rooting for his failure. In a way, Erin respected his resolve. Too bad they both couldn’t have what they wanted. But that wasn’t going to happen. For her to win, he had to lose. For him to win, she had to lose, and that was something she just wasn’t going to do. The only thing was, he didn’t know how much she needed this hospital, how much she had to make the idea work. “Look, I don’t want to keep arguing, OK? We’re not going to agree, we might not even get along very well. But we’re going to be neighbors, and because of that I’d like to try for some civility between us. Even if it’s just civility on the surface for the sake of appearances.”
“So we smile and bare our fangs when we pass each other, and make sure we growl under our breath?”
She couldn’t help but laugh at him. The man did have his charm. It was coarse, and quite deviant, but she rather liked it. “Look, what can I do to smooth a little bit of the bumpy road between us so I don’t always have to bare my fangs? It causes wrinkles.”
“Funny you should ask, because I expect I’ll be seeing at least fifteen patients first thing in the morning at the clinic. That’s the usual number. I’ve promised Trinique three more days at the bar … she’s visiting her sick sister in Miami. And in between serving drinks I’ll see at least another dozen or so patients … in the back room. Trinique had it set up as a small clinic for me. Oh, and work until about three, when the bar closes. Meaning my days are getting pretty long. So, if you’re serious about your offer, I could use your help at the clinic. Then that way you can see where the real medical need is here.”
Honestly, his schedule surprised her. She’d pictured him more the hardly working type than the working hard type. “Do you work like that every day?” she asked, not really intending to seem so interested.
“No, sometimes I have more patients than that. You know, make a few house calls. Go up to Fonta
ine and squeeze in house calls there. Tomorrow seems a little light, which is why it’s probably the best day this week to have you see why general medical care is what the area needs.”
“Always plotting, aren’t you, Coulson?”
“I’d rather think of it as moving forward.”
She thought for a moment. Right now, there wasn’t much for her to do. She wouldn’t be meeting with her architects for a couple of days, and her plans were already far enough along that at this point there really wasn’t a whole lot more to work on. So, why not? Getting to know the people here was a good idea because she was going to be one of them, and what better way to do it than working in the clinic? Admittedly, she missed working. Somewhere over the past weeks it had taken a backseat to her hospital, so much so that she’d finally left her practice. She missed it, and this would help ease the dull ache that had been settling in. In her heart she was a doctor, and that’s what she needed to be doing. Adam Coulson might think he was handing her part of his plan for her failure, but she looked at it as just the opposite. “OK, I’ll work in the clinic.”
“You will?”
She stood to face him, drew every bit of her five feet eight inches up to his well-over-six-foot physique, and stared him straight in the eye. “Just tell me what time, and I’ll be there.” In the light from the single yellow bulb dangling on the other side of the porch, he was just about the best-looking man she’d ever seen. She’d looked from afar earlier, and had totally missed the detail in his eyes. The kindness there. The twinkling. Normally, she didn’t look at men this way and right now it bothered her that she was enjoying her long, rather cheeky look at him. Enjoying it too much. So she took another step backward, then two more just to be on the safe side. “But here’s the deal. For every day I work for you I expect a day in return where you won’t be plotting my demise … at least, where I can see it so obviously.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Red.”
“I’m offering you free labor, Coulson. You want me to see the real medical need here in the hope that I’ll back off? This is the only way it’s going to happen.”